Blue Mountains or bust

29th June - And they say women change their minds. Ray decided we’d go via Renmark which was what he was going to do in the first place so today we have been in 3 states! Not bad since we’d hardly left NSW before this trip - now we’ve at least been in all the Aus states, even if it was only a tiny corner of  Victoria today. We know we’re in NSW because the bitumen roads feel like the dirt roads in WA.

We had a noisy, windy night beside the road west of Port Augusta last night and got away a bit later this morning but drove until 5pm to camp beside the Murrumbidgee River in Balranald Caravan Park, a lovely spot. I wish we could stay a bit but Ray wants to get back to Springwood in the Blue Mountains for Sunday then on to Sydney to pick up a new SUP board and north to Sawtell to meet our newest grandchild, born today, Bethany Anne and then a surfing holiday before he has to return to work. 

Mountains in the mist near Port Augusta

Hallot Windfarm

Blade from wind turbine - Hallot 

Dust storm in the distance

Dust storm on ploughed roadside fields

We drove through lovely mountains, wind farms, past many old ruins, pasture lands, vineyards, olive groves and citrus orchards, across the Murray and through a dust storm at the same time as it was raining! It poured as we stopped for lunch at Renmark and as we set  in Balranald but at least we didn’t cop the bad storms they’ve been having all around us.   

30th June - 4 degrees at 7.30 this morning when the sun came up just after we left Balranald headed for Bathurst via Hay and West Wyalong. We were very pleasantly surprised by West Wyalong, a few parks in the main street to choose from to stop for lunch, it’s so lovely, clean and tidy and well patronised by the time we finished.  Making good time, so will we actually make Springwood today?

Nullar-not-so-boring

26th June - Headed off to the Nullarbor today. Spent the night in a roadside freecamp on the Nullarbor and woke to catch another lovely sunrise. The road isn’t so boring even if it is the longest straight road in Australia, the countryside has gone from gum trees and scrub bush to brown grass and dry lake beds. At least I'm not bored, I'm getting lots of knitting done between photo taking, though the windscreen was pretty dirty so had to delete lots. Ray will have to wash the windscreen next fuel stop! 

Gimlet trunks

We're fascinated by the different gum trees here especially the
'bronze' very shiny trunked gimlet which have twisted trunks
seemingly more prominent in the younger trees 

Another beautiful sunrise - this time on the Nullarbor

World city signpost at Border Village

27th June - We crossed the border this morning and continued on to ‘Nullarbor’ and staying the night at the roadhouse caravan park. We didn’t do as many kilometres today because when we got to the Great Australian Bight we went in and out most of the tracks to the coastline for photos and what a fantastic coastline it is. Erosion is making it a bigger ‘bite’ all the time. With so much overhang at the edge it’s hard to know how close to get for the best photo or when that particular bit is going to end up in the beautiful blue ocean.  We drove along well travelled tracks close to the coastline (and lost an hour and a half) and got the most amazing views - something we will remember for a long, long time.

The straightness of the road enables it to be used as an emergency airstrip
for RFDS, closing the road off for how ever long needed

This is not a walking track but a crack in the cliff

The beginning of the crack in previous photo

We knew not to walk out on that overhang!!

The magnificent Great Australian Bight cliffs to the east

The beautiful clear blue water of the Southern Ocean

28th June - We’re on a mission (or at least Ray is). The generator at the Nullarbor roadhouse was extremely noisy all night so we got up early, had breakfast and packed up under the stars, catching the sunrise 45mins down the road and made our way to Port Augusta, staying at another roadside camp just outside Port Augusta. SA doesn’t have as good roadside campsites as WA, where you can get a bit off the road, so we don’t expect to get too much sleep again tonight then Ray wants to get beyond Broken Hill tomorrow so another long day ahead.

Below are views of the changing countryside from Nullarbor to Port Augusta

The end of the Nullarbor - Ceduna

Had to stop right off the road for this one!

Gold Fever?

25th June - We went on a 1/2 day tour of Kalgoorlie today - it is a big city. Many new areas have been populated due to the mining boom so it spreads far and wide. The tour guide was an enthusiastic local who took us all over the city and gave us some insight and lots of information about Kalgoorlie and surrounds. 

Firstly we went through the RFDS centre and got to look over one of the very valuable planes of this wonderful service. Hopefully we are never in need of it’s services.

Now this is what I'd call cramped
working conditions - taken from
the tiny cockpit

After touring all the sights, historical buildings and areas of interest (not necessarily to us) we went up to the lookout over the superpit which is 3ks long x 2ks wide and 500m deep and getting bigger. We’ve seen lots of BIG things above ground to this point on our trip and this is an, equally as impressive, big hole in the ground and of course all the equipment that goes with it. 

Hard to believe anything like gold or nickel
could come out of here. We still haven't seen any gold!!

Unfortunately we couldn’t wait around for the blast, which was on a 1 hour notice, it would be something else, I’m sure.  A lot of the shops, pubs etc. are original or refurbished to ‘original’ condition, especially in Kalgoorlie itself, so it’s like driving through the 1800’s at times.  Boulder, which is an extension of Kalgoorlie to make it a city, doesn’t get the funds that Kalgoorlie does, so has a lot of run down buildings and damaged ones from an earthquake 2 years ago. It doesn’t make sense if they are combined to make Boulder Kalgoorlie City!

Tomorrow we set off for the Nullabor or, as someone said it should be called, The Nullaboring. I'll let you know. Again Ray has a sniff of the east coast and has to pick up a new SUP board in Sydney so is keen to get that and spend some time on the coast but I'm hoping we can take a bit of time and enjoy some places of interest along the way.

Outback

 22nd June - Another lovely day, though very cold. 

Like children, the birds don't like the skin

We went to Rainbow Jungle, the parrot sanctuary in Kalbarri - a terrific setup with some lovely birds but still sad to see the ones in cages even though they have plenty of room. Then we sat and watched surfers being towed by jetski onto waves for filming, Ray's getting more and more ‘surfsick’ than homesick.

It's official we are in the outback, we past a sign that said so!!


23rd-24th June - Heading for Kalgoorlie via Mt Magnet on Saturday (we skirted Geraldton as there was so much traffic).  About 80 ks south of Kalbarri is the Pink Lake, which is advertised as a tourist site but when we were driving past it there were no signs whatsoever and we couldn’t stop on the side of the road so couldn’t get any photos.  A pity, it was something beautiful to see - the algae in the water makes it pink just kilometre after kilometre of pink water.  We free camped in a roadside camp, by ourselves, between Mt Magnet and the Golden Hwy, not  a bad spot and not too many trucks going past through the night. 

We woke to a beautiful sunrise viewed from the back door. Very cold and a bit windy again so glad to be travelling.

 We've had many oversize loads going past, usually the opposite direction but this has been the widest and meant we had to go off the road to pass.

Again the countryside is changing all the time, we’ve been driving through farmland, sheep and cattle pastures and scrubby bush as well as mining sites. 

The mines leave a big mess and lots of these man made mountains but I guess that’s the price for having the boom they’re having over here, although everything else has a big price on it as well, accommodation is astronomical here for renters and everywhere has rows and rows of dongas for the-fly-in-fly-out workers. 

One place we stayed on the coast had enough rooms for about 400 people behind the caravan park and as we got to Kalgoorlie on Sunday after another 6 hour drive, we couldn’t get into one of the caravan parks-there were mining trucks everywhere-but we got into a nicer one anyway and will stay for a couple of nights. Kalgoorlie is a big place.

No wonder these get hit by cars, a number of times
the eagle was the last to move off from roadkill
when we drove past. This one just didn't move on.

These are photos of a part of this building in Menzies
 covered in number plates

Kalbarri - you'll love it!

18th June - Ray spent the morning rotating the tyres as they have done over 10000 kms this trip so that was a bit of fun for him on the red sand! He managed OK but it was a bit of a slow job. 

It was a bit eerie today as it was overcast and difficult to tell where the sea ended and the sky began but it was still so inviting I had to have what is probably one last snorkel, though I could only see about 1metre in front of me and didn’t much like not being able to see what was coming so just had a short ‘invigorating’ swim and with no wind it was lovely.

19th June - Sadly we had to leave our little bit of paradise today and it took 3 hours to get back to the highway and on our way to Kalbarri. 

Shell beach

A handful of the beach,
the whole beach is made of these 

We did call into Shell Beach at the bottom of Shark Bay on our way. It’s an amazing beach completely made up of tiny shells and the water is crystal clear but quite crisp, according to one young couple about to dive in while we were there.

After a long day driving we got to Kalbarri and will be staying in a great spot in a lovely little park opposite the river, for at least 4 days. It came over cloudy and started to rain as we were finishing setting up so went for a drive to find fishing and surfing spots but it’s so windy not much fun at all.  At least it’s not cold, quite mild actually and hopefully it clears up soon enough for us to go and explore.

20th-21st June - Cold and windy so we did some shopping & hibernated for the rest of the day on Wednesday. 

Beautiful day Thursday morning so after getting the washing on the line we went for a 9km walk around the Loop of the Murtchison River in Kalbarri National Park. Striking rock formations, a winding river and so many varieties of flora made this walk very interesting - 

Murchison River viewed
through the Natural Window 

following the loop of the river, firstly along the top of the ridge from ‘The Natural Window’, down to the river and following the path of the river via a rough rock ledge for a good part of the way. 

I’m sure this would not be allowed in NSW where everything is fenced off for our protection and you have to take photos through wire or from a great distance, one part we had to get down on our knees and crawl around a ledge with not much room between it and the river. 

This is the narrow ledge we
had to crawl up

Ray saved me again as I fell while jumping down to a lower rock. A couple of grazes and probably aches and pains tomorrow but otherwise OK. We are so unfit, we got home for a late lunch and rested the remainder of the afternoon. It has got so cold now we have dug out the winter woolies and have the heater on.

A touch of paradise

I can't believe we actually have service out here


17th June - After a lovely quiet night in the caravan park in Denham we transferred the camper to the National Park. The road in is 4wd only and quite sandy especially towards to tip of the cape, the only hiccup was getting stuck in the sandy road when we had to move aside for another oncoming vehicle. 

A couple of times along the way we
skirted what was a lake on the map
but now a carpet of heather and the
road was very firm and level (a nice
change from the corrugations and ruts)

The road is very sandy between wheel tracks and as we had to mount the side we lost traction but it was just a matter of letting the tyres down even more and driving it out. We had planned on going to Gregories campsite but the driver we gave way to told us to go to South Gregories as they had just spent a few days there and it was perfect, so we took his advice and set up in a lovely big site to ourselves (only 2 other couples in the campground) right above the water’s edge, with a short path beside the camper down to the shore. 

How's this for a water view?

After lunch we went for a drive further up the cape and called in at the campsite we had planned on going to and are so glad we had to give way to that driver this morning or we’d have been very disappointed (no close to shore camping and a very difficult descent to the, mostly rock, ‘beach’). We drove on up to Cape Peron and walked out on Cormorant Point to see the cold and warm currents meet and a pod of dolphins rounding up there feed. Though it was out a fair way it was still something to see!!

Shovel nose shark

We called in at Skipjack Point on the way back and were rewarded by the sight of a number of sharks and stingrays in the bay below, we also saw a turtle and eaglerays as well as a shovel nosed shark. We spent ages watching and Ray noticed the surface breaking up straight out in front of us with birds swooping, then a couple of sharks went in for a feed. It was fantastic to have a bird’s eye view even though we’ve seen it so many times on TV. 

I'm guessing the new age lighthouse

Red cliffs at Cape Peron